To ensure it could provide quality deliverables to its clients, Arup implemented Bluebeam Revu, which enables a common data environment for owners, architects, engineers and contractors to easily share jobsite information.
In seeking to guarantee quality deliverables to their clients, engineering consulting giant Arup continually found themselves running into issues during manual design reviews. The lack of standard markups within the review processes kept stakeholders occupied with document management as opposed to focusing on design and execution. Review timeframes were bloated due to the reliance on email and postal services for the heavy project collaboration. That’s when Bluebeam Revu came in, the project efficiency and collaboration solution trusted by more than 1.3 million AEC professionals worldwide.
Going from manual to digital
Given the firm’s commitment to leveraging technology for project delivery, Arup began to explore ways in which manual processes could be digitised for efficiency, quality, risk mitigation and standardisation across multiple offices and projects. One key pain point Revu addressed was the issue with older or low-quality as-built drawings and scans.
“We actually had points where we couldn’t submit deliverables to the client, since the native resolution and outputs were limited by traditional PDF products. Revu helped solve these issues by actually giving us the interoperability and the functions that we needed to be able to edit them on the fly and modify them to actually suit the client requirement,” explains Ben Taylor, senior technician at Arup.
This allowed project partners spend less time deciphering as-built drawings and scans and more time focusing on their respective aspects of project delivery.
Collaborating in real time and mitigating risk
“I think Bluebeam covers a whole lot of aspects, and risk mitigation is a very important one,” says Regional CAD Lead Russell Bunn. “It does improve the communication of the team, because efficiencies are gained when people are coming to action the markups, and we can also be confident that every single drawing has the same markup in the same place and says the same thing.”
In addition, Bluebeam Studio Sessions offered a way to create simultaneous, real-time collaboration, across separate locations.
“We didn’t have an effective method of being able to communicate in real time and submit markups, it was just email trails,” says Taylor. “[Bluebeam] Studio solves all of those issues. Someone’s marking up drawings in London and they come through live in the Sydney office as we’re doing work and while people are talking on the phone, and it eliminates confusion or errors in communication via email.”
Live comments also create a single source of truth, allowing project partners to quickly assess review progress, and to ensure that the partners are working on only the most current documents.
Looking towards the future
Arup’s culture of innovation fosters an organic approach to technology, keeping the company ahead of the curve. “Revu really helped us move towards a paperless office,” Bunn says.
With a paperless future ahead and better collaboration taking place, Arup continues to build upon the firm’s legacy as an industry leader. “Going digital is so important for Arup because it’s the future,” Taylor says.